1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a data processing system and, more particularly, to a data processing system for a supply chain. Still yet more particularly, the present invention relates to a computer implemented method, an apparatus, and a computer usable program product for identifying a defective product.
2. Description of the Related Art
Due to outsourcing and globalization, the end products of a growing number of industries include components and assemblies that are built across the globe by multiple suppliers. The situation is particularly applicable in the computer industry where end products may include many thousands of parts assembled by a tiered hierarchy of suppliers.
Problems often arise when defective components pass from one level to another in the supply chain. The situation can sometimes be further exacerbated when the defective component reaches the final system integrator. When a problem with a particular product is discovered, the supplier of that product may provide affected part fallout information in various forms such as a list of serial numbers, which may be sequential or non-sequential, batch or lot information, or a specific portion of a serial number, such as a suspect date code range. The fallout information is provided with a usability indicator which can take the form of unconditional “good” or “bad”, or a conditional good or bad for certain uses, such as usability based on maximum clock speed for a defective component.
When a problem occurs with respect to a component and partial information regarding the problem is available, quick containment of the affected product is important. Without timely, robust containment and control of the affected product, defective products will be shipped to customers, thereby driving up warranty costs and directly impacting availability and customer satisfaction.
Several known solutions currently exist to provide containment of affected products. One known solution is to list each and every serial number individually in a control table and block access to the product with a “Yes” or “No” usability flag. However, in this solution, serial numbers are not always consecutive and can result in excessive setup times, thereby resulting in a possible loss of containment. Additionally, this solution requires that a user enter information into a table, and manual table loads are often prone to human error. Furthermore, the present solution does not support partial data conditions, such as a part number with a serial number starting with “01” whose range is within 10000-99999. Additionally, this solution does not support multiple conditions on the same serial number.
Another solution is to list ranges of serial numbers that are all sequential where the serial number ranges are known alphanumeric sequences. However, one issue with this solution is that the solution assumes sequential serial number ranges only and does not accommodate supplier serial number algorithms which may not be sequential. Additionally, nested serial ranges are not intuitive and are not easily implemented. Furthermore, this solution requires the list of defective products to be validated and requires management of lists for good or bad products. Moreover, this solution does not support multiple conditions in the same serial number.
Another solution is manual containment. However, this solution is extremely time consuming and people intensive. Furthermore, customers are directly impacted by any field containment, because shipment of customer orders is delayed until the manual containment is completed. Additionally, customers can also further be impacted by a defective product that potentially ships and reaches the hands of the customer before the manual containment activity is completely implemented. Additionally, simultaneous containment efforts are prone to human error and to miscommunication. Moreover, multiple conditions may be too complex to be easily analyzed manually by a person.
Each of the above solutions only allow for a one-dimensional validation of serial numbers for validation. In other words, the solution does not allows for any other conditions to be applied other than the strict identification of a serial number. Currently, a one-dimensional validation is often not fully satisfactory, and the problem is increasing as more and more products are outsourced on a part by part basis.